Hot pot eatery owner in the soup for caning employees who were late for work

BANGKOK: A mother on Saturday (March 30) filed a complaint with Pattaya police against the owner of a “mu kratha” shop for allegedly caning her son and daughter-in-law as punishment for reporting late to work.

The mother, Anong Sidaprom, 37, filed a complaint at Pattaya Police Station on Saturday evening, against the owner of the Fah Sang South Pattaya, which is a Thai-style shabu hotpot shop.

Anong alleged that the shop owner, identified as Jeh Fah, caned her son, 18-year-old son Patcharapol Sidaprom, 16 times and her daughter-in-law, Nattawat Komolwanit, 22, six times.

Anong said her son was caned 12 times but he volunteered to be caned six more times to reduce his wife’s punishment by half.

Anong said she learned of the punishments after she saw the clip of the caning on Facebook on Friday so she travelled to Udon Thani province to find out what had happened. The clip has been posted and widely shared earlier in the week.

Anong said she initially planned to meet the shop owner at the police station to settle the compensation without filing a complaint but the shop owner did not turn up so she decided to have her son and daughter-in-law press charges against the shop owner.

Many Facebook users who saw the clip attacked the shop owner for what they called a “barbaric way of punishment”.

On Friday, a reporter interviewed the shop manager, Yuwadee Boonsarn, 33, who said the caning punishment was an agreement between the shop owner and the staff.

The manager explained that the shop owner used to earlier deduct five baht for every minute they were late, but it turned out that several staff were owed nothing after the deductions.

The manager said the shop owner then proposed a two-week suspension from work as punishment but the staff proposed caning instead as they would like to come to work to get tips.

She explained that being late by 10 minutes was punished with one caning and the staff assured the shop owner they would not get mad.

On Friday, Patcharapol and Nattawat said they had agreed to the caning and that the shop owner was a kind-hearted person.

However, they changed their comment at the police station after filing the complaint, saying they felt bad about being caned and they would not return to work at the shop.

Also on Saturday, the shop owner insisted that her staff asked her to use the method of punishment instead of suspension from work. She said she would pay compensation to the couple and would henceforth deduct money for those reporting late to work. – The Nation/ANN